"Him as wore the long white beard," said the boy. "The Jew, to wit. Eh, but a got his cess, the runnion!"
"Shylock!" she cried, in spite of herself.
So this was the gossiping barn-stormer, the dissolute actor. Will Shakespeare it was with whom her Guy had spent the evening! Phœbe Wise could but capitulate, and Mary Burton took for a time triumphant possession of the heart that was Guy Fenton's.
"Have the players left the Peacock?" she asked, eagerly.
"Nay, mistress, know you not that they play to-night at the home of Sir William Percy?"
"Then they are here, at the inn, boy?"
"A saw him that played the Jew i' the garden not a half hour since. He's wont to wander there and mutter the words of the play. I'll warrant him there now, mistress."
Here, indeed, was good fortune! Shakespeare was in the garden. He should tell her where to find Guy that she might warn him. Quickly she turned away and hurried out of the yard and around the north L, beyond which was the garden, laid out with ancient hedges and long beds of old-fashioned flowers.
Now this same garden was the chief pride of the neighborhood, the more especially that gardens were but seldom found attached to inns in those days. Here there had been a partly successful attempt to imitate Italian landscape gardening; but the elaborately arranged paths, beds, and parterres, with their white statues and fountains, lost their effectiveness closed in as they were by high walls of vine-covered brick. It was rumored that once a stately peacock had here once flaunted his gorgeous plumage, giving his name to the inn itself—but this legend rested upon little real evidence.
When Phœbe reached the entrance to the main walk she stopped and looked anxiously about her. Nowhere could she see or hear anyone. Sadly disappointed, she moved slowly forward, glancing quickly to right and left, still hoping that he whom she sought had not utterly departed.